Read this blog: The one where we want to be charged ‘on the meter’ Monday 1st April 2024 We travelled by GiantIbis coach again, this time from Phnom Penh to Bangkok, in a coach which was a little more modern, with just three seats across and more leg room. As before there were two drivers and one courier accompanying us. This seems to be company policy to avoid driver tiredness. This journey was scheduled to take about eight hours with three comfort stops as well as one to cross the border and get through immigration control. The courier gave everyone entry forms to complete on the bus to speed up the process but tourists travelling on a UK passport do not require a visa to enter Thailand, as a tourist. We had to get off the bus and walk to the Cambodian border control. Part of the route was along some railway tracks which looked newly laid. It may be that the cross border train will be reinstated. We were given lanyards to wear but we suspect this was so that the GiantIbis staff could identify us rather than for any immigration-related reason. The Cambodian border check point building was […]
01
Read this blog: The one where Robert is given the forceful thumbs down Monday 4th to Wednesday 6th March 2024 Having travelled for almost a decade on a passport with a malfunctioning chip which never seemed to work in the biometric gates at airports, on landing at Singapore Airport, Robert once again found himself in possession of a defective piece of equipment. This time it was his right thumb. He had dutifully completed the online electronic visa passes to let us enter this historic city state and these scanned successfully. Matilda then stood on the footprints as directed, took her glasses off for photo-recognition, placed her thumb firmly on the scanner and was allowed to pass. Robert however was stopped at the barrier. The immigration official first cleaned his thumb with a spray. When this had no effect, she then told him press down harder, and then resorted to pressing his thumb down very firmly on the scanner herself, all to no avail. Finally Robert was told to use his left thumb and eventually the barrier opened and he was allowed to enter Singapore but we are not sure whether this means he has a fully functioning left thumb or […]
Read this blog: The one where we have a beer with some cats Monday 19th February 2024 We try to plan a regular trip away with our friends Liz and Martin in our respective motorhomes early in the year and for our 2024 visit we had settled on Bristol. In September 2021, on our way back from Tresco, Robert bought Matilda a lifetime membership of the National Trust at Godolphin House. Matilda noted that Robert waited until she was old enough to qualify for a senior rate before he indulged her but was nevertheless delighted and determined to start getting his money’s worth out of this investment as soon as possible. The following day, she identified Lacock Abbey and Village as a National Trust site which, unlike many at that time, did not require pre-booking. Since then, encouraged by her daughters and mindful that age could increasingly blunt her memory, Matilda has acquired a National Trust passport to keep a record of the beautiful and historic places she visits. She therefore suggested that Lacock would be the perfect spot to break the journey to Bristol so that she could get her NT passport stamped. She managed to convince Robert, who likes […]
Read this blog: The one where we kick off our RWC campaign Wednesday 6th to Thursday 7th September 2023 When Robert bought tickets to the Rugby World Cup [RWC] in March 2021 transport and accommodation for the various venues were instantly in high demand. Our first destination was the England vs Argentina match in Marseille, scheduled for the day after the opening ceremony. Robert therefore planned that it would be easier to fly to Lyon and spend a few days travelling down to Marseille. We flew from Heathrow and spent a day travelling. By the time we checked in to our hotel in Lyon we were feeling the beginnings of heat exhaustion and lacked the energy to return to the centre so settled for a chilled beer and a Caesar salad in our hotel. We will be returning to Lyon in Al the motor home later in our [RWC] campaign and so will be able to see some of the sights of Lyon at our leisure then. The next morning we were booked to travel by train to Avignon. Unfortunately we had just boarded a Metro line B train when it was announced that there were technical difficulties and trains […]
Read this blog: The one where we experience a haunting Wednesday 16th and Thursday 17th August 2023 We had originally planned that we would be taking our elderly dog, Ralf, to stay with Matilda’s sister, Clare, in Essex on our way up to spend a long weekend in Scotland but he sadly died a week before our trip. Although we were so very sorry to have to say goodbye to him, he had had a long and [we hope] happy life with us and we have such fond memories: regular readers may remember him making quite a splash in our Narrowboat Adventures in 2022. Without the need to arrange a holiday home for Ralf, we were able to rethink our plans and break our journey to York at Lyveden, as Matilda is still working on getting Robert’s money’s worth out of her lifetime membership of the National Trust and is keeping a running total of her ‘savings’. Lyveden is a remarkable survivor of the Elizabethan age, particularly as the Tresham family who owned the property were not only devout Catholics but were also involved in the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 against King James I. Sir Thomas Tresham inherited the estate […]
Read this blog: The one where we start our Rhine cruise Sunday 9th to Tuesday 11th July 2023 Earlier in the year Robert planned to accompany his mother on a river cruise along the Rhine in preparation for them taking a much longer trip in 2024. However, in May this year, his mother decided that, due to various health issues she would not be able to travel. So close to the departure date there was no chance of getting a full refund and she kindly thought to give her place to a deserving cause. Although Matilda felt she could have been a serious contender in this category, she had been allocated tickets in the public ballot for the Men’s Singles Final at Wimbledon. Such an opportunity might never come her way again and it was something she definitely wanted to tick off her bucket list. At the start of the year when she was offered the tickets she had agreed to go with our elder daughter, Ruth, who [unlike Robert] enjoys Pimms, tennis and strawberries and cream and was willing to pay for her own ticket. With two members of The Herd therefore already committed, the obvious candidate was our […]
Saturday 13th May 2023 We are on our way to join Robert‘s mother on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly as this is the final year of his parents’ 30 year timeshare there. Although part of the UK, getting to the Scillies is an expedition in itself and unfortunately his father is now frail and forgetful and unable to make such a long journey. We are younger and less forgetful but we still like to break the journey when we can and take in a few sights on the way. This year, Matilda wanted to include seeing both her ex-neighbour who now lives in Wadebridge and the National Trust property Greenway, Agatha Christie’s country home near Brixham in Devon. Robert had decided to break the journey first at Exeter so that we could then carry on and see both these two on one day. He usually likes to set off early to “beat the traffic” but Matilda knows that this is really cover for him trying to get to a hostelry for the end of the school day. He also wanted to watch the Saracens vs Northampton Saints rugby match. Matilda meanwhile is fighting a rearguard action to delay the first […]
Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th March 2023 This trip has a complicated history. We originally planned a three day trip to Bruges in December 2021 with our friends Liz and Martin. However, just as we were about to depart, an incomprehensible rule was introduced which prevented people from staying for more than 48 hours in Belgium without taking a Covid test. We were never entirely sure how this was meant to restrict the spread of the virus but we did not want to break the rules and risk having to pay for our own accommodation to isolate. Our Eurostar tickets were non-transferable so we could change neither the names of the passengers nor the route travelled. We therefore decided to leave Belgium early, spend one night in Lille, in France, and book new tickets to travel home from there to circumvent the rule. This left us with two return tickets from Brussels. Robert has been repeatedly deferring these tickets ever since but our time has run out and it was a case of ‘use them or lose them’. So here we are, on a trip planned to take in Düsseldorf, Bonn and Maastricht, returning via Brussels. As will become apparent in […]
Monday 31st January 2023 As we were waiting to to go through security at the airport, Robert modelled his Travel Hack #2. [Travel Hack #1 was the use of a vaporetto ticket instead of the electronic door key to ensure that devices continue to charge when you are our of your hotel room.] Travel Hack #2 is the use of a lanyard to transport your liquids [hands free] until such time as you have passed through security and can safely pack them away in your luggage. Matilda thought he just looked foolish but, ultimately, accepted that the hack worked. Unfortunately, having landed at Gdańsk Airport, we had an inauspicious introduction to the Polish railway system. The ticket machines on both platforms at the airport station were out of order but we were told by some helpful people waiting for the same train that we would be able to buy tickets on board. As rail enthusiasts we naturally had absolutely no intention of fare dodging and when the conductor walked through the train past us, Robert asked to pay only to be fined £20 for travelling without tickets. Apparently we were meant to pre-empt this by going to the first carriage […]
Thursday 12th to Sunday 15th January 2023 We were delighted to be invited to Staffordshire to celebrate the long-awaited wedding of Liz and Martin, two very dear friends who have shared several of Travelling Herd’s adventures. Duncan and Phil [who regular readers may remember provided Matilda with a very welcome bath during our Narrowboat Adventure #4] invited us to stay with them the night before the wedding. It was a real pleasure to be able to catch up before the ceremony and Matilda particularly enjoyed meeting fellow wedding guests Jo and Paul face to face for the first time, having previously only met them over Zoom during lockdown. Long standing friends and their partners were seated together at the reception and the years and miles just slipped away. When Robert and Matilda first met [towards the end of 1989] Liz and Martin were a couple and we [along, we suspect, with many of their other friends and relatives at that time] expected them to become husband and wife. Life can be unpredictable and they went their separate ways. Two marriages, two families and two divorces later, we have finally borne witness to what many of us knew to be true – they were […]
Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th September 2022 The year 2022 has been very nautical in flavour: having spent almost three months on a narrowboat; returned from America on the Queen Mary and island-hopped in the Isles of Scilly we are now heading to Italy to spend 12 days cruising the rivers, canals and sea around the Venice Laguna with two of our regular TravellingHerd companions, Liz and Martin. We have one night in Florence on our way to meet them and pick up our boat. It seems Robert is back to his old tricks again and has booked a hotel near the station we will be departing from in the morning. Sometimes this has resulted in us staying in some rather disreputable areas. However in Florence we find we are just in the suburbs enjoying a balmy evening with the locals. After checking in to our hotel, a short walk took us to the Pin Up Beerstrò bar next to the Cinema Flora. The charming waiter [seen in the background between us in the photo above] clearly had the measure of Robert. Having scanned the QR code so that we could peruse the menu, Robert found that the beer we […]
Friday 16th to Monday 19th September 2022 Derek continued to improve on his whittling, copying the lettering from the original and the final result was quite impressive. Waking early on Friday, Matilda ventured out to watch the sunrise as it bathed the cottage in a warm glow. The boats dictate our plans on the Scillies and when we checked the trips running on Friday, the best destination was St Martin’s as this was likely to be the only day we would be able to go there. Matilda decided that she would stay on Tresco and take advantage of the indoor pool. So while Matilda set off in her costume and robe, the other three set off for New Grimsby to catch Firethorn over to St Martin’s where they walked to the Day Mark, a navigation aid built in 1683 which is painted red and white. The views, as everywhere on the Isles of Scilly, are gorgeous and Gill pronounced it to be her favourite island so far. Any visit to St Martin’s with Robert obviously now includes The Seven Stones pub. He pointed its location out to Gill and they agreed to meet there later. When the Robinson’s failed to […]
Thursday 8th to Tuesday 13th September 2022 Last year, Matilda noticed that there would be a Low Tide Event scheduled for the Sunday before our usual Tresco week, which was starting on 13th September 2022, so we planned to travel down early, visit the famous Jubilee Pool in Penzance, and spend a few days each on St Mary’s and Bryher, to enjoy the various pop up stalls on the sandbank. This year we opted to travel by train, leaving home just after 09:00 so that Matilda could make full use of her Freedom Pass. Black clouds were looming as we arrived in Penzance and made our way across the road from our accommodation in The Stanley to the Jubilee Pool which promotes itself as “the UK’s largest, most celebrated Art Deco sea water lido and geothermal heated pool“. Only a few hardy souls were swimming in the unheated pool. Although the sea water is geothermally heated and replenished daily it still seemed a little chilly and Matilda took up position in front of one of the inlets where there was a warm current flowing into the pool. After a short while, the black clouds fulfilled their promise and huge raindrops pounded […]
Sunday 1st and Monday 2nd May 2022 In the spring of 2020, Robert had planned an extensive trip, loosely based on Phinneas Fogg’s journey Around the World in 80 days. The plan was to circumnavigate the globe without flying. However, when cases of Covid were first being reported he re-routed several sections and was forced to book plane tickets. Obviously the trip was eventually completely cancelled but we were left with some vouchers to use up and this has allowed us to fly to Iceland to break our journey to America and visit the recently opened Sky Lagoon. Despite predictions of airport delays prior to the early May bank holiday our transit through Gatwick was trouble free. It felt good to be travelling overseas and visibility in the air was good as few over Scotland. Reykjavik was one of the first places we visited after we retired. We brought our daughters here in December 2018 in an unsuccessful attempt to see the Northern Lights but spent one magical night at the Blue Lagoon Silica Hotel and we have wanted to return ever since. Robert spotted the vapours rising from the Blue Lagoon complex as we flew overhead. The landscape looks very […]
Tuesday 1st February 2022 When we tell people that we have hired a narrowboat for three months the responses vary from “Are you completely mad?” to “Great, could we come too?”. Matilda falls somewhere in between. Robert felt the need to plan national holidays to pass the time in lockdown when travelling abroad was a distant dream and Matilda absentmindedly agreed without necessarily believing it would ever happen. Yet here we are at the start of February having our familiarisation session on The Duke from David Dare. Fortunately the sun shone brightly on this endeavour and we set off in unseasonably glorious warmth which made it seem less of an insane undertaking. Originally we had planned to travel just a short distance and go through three locks but the sunshine made us bold and we tackled another eight before the light started to fade. You can tell who is wrapped up warm and who is in shirtsleeves doing all the hard work. We moored overnight close to The Blue Lias pub. When Matilda scouted ahead for mooring spots at about 16:45 the pub looked very closed so we moored on the opposite bank, a little further down. Matilda felt she, […]
Tuesday 8th February 2022 We interrupt our narrowboat adventure to travel to Italy to watch a Six Nations rugby match. We have talked about going for a long time and the trip was originally booked pre-Covid. Robert maintains this is a birthday present for Matilda as the Italy vs England match usually takes place around her birthday weekend on alternate years. On this basis she insisted our girls should come too [presence not presents] and they will be joining us when their work commitments permit, at the weekend. Travelling via London City Airport is very civilised. Toiletries do not need to be in a plastic bag and liquids and technology can all be packed in your luggage and left in there. Even though Robert and Matilda each set off security scanners and Robert had to take off both his belt and his shoes we were still through very quickly. Nothing incriminating was found but Matilda has resolved not to wear her button fly Levi’s through airport security in future. Clear skies gave us a good view of the snow-capped Alps as we flew over. We landed in Florence and caught the tram for a very reasonable €1.5 each from right […]